Duck Leg Confit

Duck legs are dense working muscle — flavourful but tough if cooked quickly. A dry salt cure applied before poaching draws surface moisture out through osmosis, seasons the meat all the way through rather than just the surface, and firms the texture slightly so the meat holds together through a long, slow cook instead of falling apart into mush. It is not primarily what makes confit shelf-stable — the fat and the cooking do that work — but skipping the cure gives you bland, wetter meat.

A widely used starting point is 1.5–2% salt by weight of the legs — for four legs weighing roughly 1.2 kg (2.6 lb) total, that's about 18–24 g (1–1.5 tbsp) of salt. Add crushed garlic, thyme, bay and cracked black pepper to taste; these flavour the surface but don't affect the cure's function. Rub the mixture over the legs, lay them in a single layer on a tray, cover, and refrigerate.

Rinse the cure off and pat the legs fully dry before they go into the fat — residual surface salt concentrates unevenly during the long poach otherwise.

Classic confit fully submerges the legs in rendered duck fat, which for four legs in a snug pot generally means 1–1.5 L (about 4–6 cups). That's a meaningful amount if you're not already sitting on rendered fat from previous roasts — see how to render duck fat to build up a supply. If you don't have enough, choose a pot or deep baking dish sized close to the legs so less fat is needed to submerge them, and top up the shortfall with a neutral oil — the legs won't taste identical to an all-duck-fat confit, but they'll still poach and protect properly as long as they stay fully covered.

Confit is poached, not simmered — the fat should hold at roughly 190–210°F (88–99°C), well below a rolling simmer, with the smallest bubbles occasionally breaking the surface. In a domestic oven this usually means setting the dial to 200–225°F (93–107°C) and checking the fat temperature directly with a thermometer rather than trusting the dial, since oven thermostats are least accurate at low settings. Cook uncovered or loosely covered for 2.5–3.5 hours, until the meat is fork-tender and pulls easily from the bone but hasn't disintegrated.

Traditional confit was stored fat-sealed at cool cellar temperature for weeks or months, which made sense before refrigeration was universal and salt levels were often higher than modern recipes use. That is not a food-safety practice current guidance recommends. Cool the cooked legs, keep them submerged in their fat, and refrigerate — properly chilled, fat-sealed confit keeps for about 1–2 weeks, and cooked poultry in general should not be treated as shelf-stable at room temperature. If you want longer storage, freeze the legs in their fat instead of relying on a room-temperature seal.